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LeBron James showed up strong last night, but will he ever truly be able to recover what he lost? (Source: Yardbarker.com)

In a game that many (including myself) thought would cause LeBron James to melt like the Wicked Witch Of The West meeting a bucket o’ water, the man came through impressively, silencing his critics.  Well, silencing some.  Perhaps how silenced people are has to do with how injured they were, or what exactly about his “Decision” upset them.  There are four main reasons why people were angry, and me, I fall into the fourth category.  They are:

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Could this be LeBron's final press conference in Cleveland? (Source: Yardbarker.com)

LeBron James coming to New York has always been a slim possibility.  Well, unless the Yankees are playing, then he’ll come.  But joining the Knicks?  Probably not.  For me, the most compelling reason for him to come, as I discussed in an older post, is that legacy-wise, for some inexplicable reason, winning championships in a major market carries more caché.  To me, because of his otherworldly abilities, I assumed his free agency thought process would really be more about “Where would I like to get some rings?” rather than “Where can I get enough help to win a championship?”  If he loses now, in just the second round, would that change his mental approach to the latter question?

There are still games to play, and I wouldn’t be surprised if LeBron willed the Cavs to victory yet.  And if he does go out now, it might not even effect his mindset at all.  However, since idle (or idol) speculation is all we’ve got left in New York right now, let’s look at possible ways that the King’s summer free agency could be effected by this surprise turn of events:

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Big summer franchise movies are assembled much like a NBA franchise team. You’ve got the executives who care more about the bottom line (“Let’s sign Allen Iverson — he’ll put butts in the seat” or “Let’s hire Scarlett Johansson — she’ll add sex appeal!”) rather than whether they create a high quality product. They hire the actors, or ball players. The thing is, it’s then up to the coach, or director, to make something out of this collection they were force fed, with their name being on the line. When a movie sucks, how often do you hear, “Man, that studio executive did an awful job?” And days after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated from the playoffs by the Cleveland Cavaliers, it was coach Vinny Del Negro who got the axe, not GM John Paxson.

For the rest, click here.

After Game #1 it seemed like Mo Williams would be a Major X-Factor. After Game #2 and Rajon Rondo's defense, we're downgrading Mo to a mere Minor X-Factor. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

After last night’s game, it’s clear there are 5 Major X-Factors in the Cleveland Cavaliers/Boston Celtics playoff series, 3 Minor X-Factors, and 1 Under-Reported Straight-Out Factor.  What do I mean by Major, Minor and Straight-Out Factors?  Well, first a Straight-Out Factor versus an X-Factor is something you know is going to happen versus something that may or may not happen.  Like it’s obvious now that Rajon Rondo is a force who’s gonna bring it every night. Earlier in his career that wasn’t the case, and he was an X-Factor. Now he’s a Straight-Out Factor, but he’s an Over-Reported Factor (or rather a Justifiably-Frequently-Reported Factor), so we ain’t gonna go into him.

In terms of Major X-Factors or Minor ones, a Major one is a change that will effect the whole series, while a Minor X-Factor effects just one game.  For instance, Doc Rivers has said that he hopes Nate Robinson can come in at some point during the playoffs, get hot, and help them win that game.  However, Nate clearly isn’t gonna be a major X-Factor who’s gonna suddenly be a force who leads them to victory in every single remaining battle.  Honestly, I don’t even have him as a minor X-Factor, but who knows?

The Five Major X-Factors:

To read the rest, click here.

For once LeBron desperately needed Mo to be more than his towel boy (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Here’s a post I wrote for the main FanSided page:

The King looked dead. In the first half of Game 1, four of LeBron’s five attempts were with his left hand. He was passive, often receiving the ball and just swinging it to the next person to make someone else initiate the offense. By the third quarter, the Cavs were down by 11 to the Celtics and seemed lifeless. Antawn Jamison who’s been the #2 scoring option since joining the team would end the evening with only 7 points on 2 for 6 shooting from the field (and an equally pitiful 3 for 6 from the line). It was time for Mo’.

Mo Williams, rightly criticized for disappearing last year in the playoffs when he was the team’s undisputed #2 option, had his now infamous first dunk as a Cavalier, igniting the crowd and his team. It wasn’t just that throwdown either, as it was just the first of 10 straight points that Mo scored in a row in slightly more than two minutes. Cleveland had a one-point lead by the time the team made it to the fourth quarter. Then LeBron took over.

Read the rest of the story here.

It doesn't matter if you hate Chicago's Derrick Rose. As a Knicks' fan you should root for him to expose Cleveland's Mo Williams so that a certain King will get frustrated and wanna leave the Cavs. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

It’s Fan Appreciation 101 to root for your team to win, but as anyone who’s taken higher classes in Team Supportation knows, that’s just the tip o’ the iceberg.  Sometimes you gotta see the larger picture, which may require you to hope your team actually loses for say a better draft position.  The Indiana Pacers finished the season playing some of their best ball, but that annoyed many true-blooded Indy fans since it destroyed their lottery chances.  Other times, you may root for your team to lose so that the owner finally wises up and sees it has to fire that crappy coach or GM (or both — hello Isiah Thomas and Mike Dunleavy Sr.).

Frequently, as a member of the faithful, you may even have to root for outcomes in games featuring other teams.  Say you’re battling for the 8th seed in the playoffs, then you gotta watch the games involving the other teams in the battle so you can root against them.  Or maybe you’re assured of being in the playoffs, but you know you match up against one team better than another.  Now you gotta cheer for the right teams to win and the wrong ones to lose all so that everything falls perfectly for your one true team.

However, with the Knicks’ eliminated from the playoffs long-ago, what’s a Knick fan to root for?  Things that will help us out in free agency.  I spent the last month of the regular season caring less about the Knicks’ wins/loss total than about the outcome of the Raptors/Bulls’ battle for the final playoff spot.  I figured that if the Raptors don’t make the playoffs, then surely Chris Bosh’s chances of remaining in Toronto drop rapidly.  Does this mean he’s a sure-fire Knick, or even that he’s my top choice?  No, but I like to improve my odds as much as possible.  Had the Pacers finished with the fifth worst record instead of the tenth, they still might not have won the lottery, but it wouldn’t have hurt.

Thus, for a true Knick fan, here are the things for which we should be rooting in order to increase our chances during the free agency period:

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Bosh revealed that he’s not necessarily interested in playing anywhere that he’s not the clear-cut franchise player.

“That’s a good question,” Bosh said when asked by ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher if he’s bothered by the widespread perception that he’s determined to follow either LeBron James or Dwyane Wade by signing on with one of the teams they choose starting July 1.

“It’s funny you say that, because I was thinking about it. I was just looking at what people say and it’s like, ‘Chris is going to go here and play with him or this, this and that.’ I’m like, ‘Wait a minute.’ I feel like I should be built around. And maybe that’s just my ego talking, but I feel that I’m a very good player in this league and I’m only going to get better. So … maybe we should be getting somebody [in Toronto].”

Bosh would probably be outta Toronto in a sec if one of the three teams in home state Texas were in the running

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